Beyond the Breakwater

by Catherine Foley

  It was a new world to us and though we came from different schools and different counties we clung together like sheep, nervously stepping out and forward as a group, learning how to act like grown-ups. We’d become friends in our first year at university when we’d stayed in La Retraite Hostel, where we each had our own room and regular meals. When we began our second year we found this house on Hartland’s Avenue that we rented together and stayed in until the end of university.

  Clothes were borrowed, books were lost, dinners were sometimes forgotten and lectures were missed as our house echoed with the sound of our names – Ana, Kay, Maria, Máire and Catherine.

  Outside our house there was a small garden of weeds, a lush wilderness of knee-high grass interspersed with yellow dandelions and dandelion clocks. A lone monkey puzzle tree stood stark and pointless in their midst.

  We lived for the moment when a handsome, dashing, dangerous rake would fall in love with one of us and whisk us off our feet. We spent our days talking about the elusive young men we had spotted crossing the university’s quadrangle. We were only interested in the unavailable ones, of course, and they provided a topic of endless conversation for us. We gave them nicknames so we could discuss them at length without fear of discovery. The Ruler was duly christened after an encounter with one of our number when he’d reached across a library desk and asked for the loan of a ruler. We came to know another student as The Cow after we spotted him drinking a full pint of milk in one go outside the college restaurant. Brown Jumper was Brown Jumper because he seemed to have only the one and wore it constantly. The boy who was Casper was so because he was quiet and a lot like the fictional cartoon character Casper, the Friendly Ghost. It was The Eagle’s strong profile that earned him his name.

  Each of these individuals was particularly important to us and each sighting had to be analysed by all of us. Did The Ruler say anything when you passed him? What exactly did he say? What was The Cow wearing? What was he carrying? Would you say The Eagle was going home for the weekend?

  We tried to keep a check on their whereabouts by keeping their comings and goings under constant observation. We were the original stalkers, waiting at corners to see them emerge from lectures. We took up seats behind them in the reading rooms where they studied so that we could maintain round-the-clock surveillance. In case subterfuge was called for we’d always have books open in front of us and so we gave the impression we were studying. To survey all approaches to the quadrangle outside we’d pay regular visits to the on-campus ladies toilets.

  Of course we had plenty of male friends but these were not the ones who set our pulses racing. These were the ones we treated dismissively and derisively and who still came back for more. They visited us late in Hartland’s Avenue, hoping to cadge a cup of tea. They bought us flowers, they treated us to coffee in the restaurant and they quoted lines from Bob Dylan. But these were not the stuff of exquisite ecstasy; we were looking for the grand romance and that most elusive of impossible emotions – love.

  Then, one night, a number of the young men on whom all our attention was focused descended on us in our bungalow. That night went down in history as a visit of almost magical proportions. As they rapped on the glass panels of our front door, one of us was emerging from the bathroom after a bath. In they trooped, these young men. Emboldened by alcohol, they seemed to swagger in. And the larger than life presence of such attractive males – those who had stoked our imaginations over many months – suddenly being in our midst left us excited and borderline hysterical. They came in like marauding Vikings, full of devilment and mayhem. They responded to our panicked shrieks with great gusto when we ran from them – running as if we were about to be ravished. It was tremendous fun.

  The images I have of the rest of that night are like a dream sequence now. With steam emerging from the bathroom, the smell of talc in the air and the general aura of bathing wafting through the house, some of them decided to strip. Once naked, these mischievous interlopers rampaged through our nunnery of domesticity. Like some tribal dance troupe, they made quick sorties into our rooms, swinging their hips. At one point they shook clouds of Johnson’s Baby powder over us.

  When they left we remained alert, thrilling from the experience. There had been no physical contact but the veil of illusion had been torn aside. Ever after that adult romp, us girls felt we’d grown up. We’d lived through an experience that no child would understand. We were no longer innocents. We’d seen male nakedness. We’d experienced a night of wild exuberance, abandon and hilarity. When they left, we were exhausted but thrilled. After that the chase for each of us to know one of these male students intimately was on in earnest.

  37

  Finals

  We’d borrow different jeans and tops from each other’s drawers, taking care and time each day in our preparations before our ascent from Hartland’s Avenue to the lofty plains of UCC. We’d stand up on a chair in the sitting room in front of a mirror that hung over an empty fireplace and, turning this way and that, we’d check how we looked from behind.

  After attaining just the right look – and with a final smear of Vaseline across our lips – we’d gather up our belongings, don a Levi’s jacket or a duffel coat and sashay our way down to the campus to spend the day watching out for boys.

  Throughout the day we starved ourselves until dinner time in the evening. Instead of food, we’d talk over coffee at elevenses and lunchtime about how much weight we’d gain if we had an apple, a banana, a slice of toast, a carton of yoghurt or a bowl of All-Bran. In the evening we’d trudge back to our house for dinner as prepared by one of us – peanuts in squid ink was one I recall that Máire prepared that did not go down too well. Better days included bacon and cabbage, pork chops and fried onions, and a well-known Tralee dish as prepared by our Kerry representative, Kay, was a tasty stew-like affair called ‘skirts and kidneys’.

  As the days progressed over the course of a week, you’d find us counting the dwindling amount of pennies that we’d left in our house kitty – to which we contributed five pounds each every week. I used to buy the potatoes and cabbage from a vegetable shop on Barrack Street. I remember the long trek uphill to our house after purchasing the various ingredients. I’d buy the meat from a butcher on my way home. My culinary skills amounted to boiling the lot to bally-rags and dishing it up, steaming and hot onto the plates. I was able to make white onion sauce but this was an optional extra and did not always appear. We’d devour the lot in a couple of minutes.

  When we had gorged and eaten our fill we’d retire to the sitting room, lie on the couch or the hearthrug or the floor and discuss the perfectly reasonable habit the ancient Romans had of visiting the vomitorium. (I realise now how we diced with danger and put our health at risk but we were not averse to a spot of bulimia, not to mention a touch of anorexia, often congratulating ourselves on our combined willpower in not eating.)

  No one could ever have accused us of being academic. Although we basked in the glorious stereotype of the lofty, idealistic student who spends her life reading, writing essays, attending lectures and tutorials, studying literature or science and thinking great thoughts, we were far from that. It’s a wonder I knew where the library was.

  When exam time came around, dinners became a distant memory. One sunny evening, it struck me how ill-prepared I was to sit my upcoming final exams. I phoned home and poured out my worries to my mother. Panic-stricken I cried like a baby as I realised the ignominy of failure that awaited me. I continued to blubber until I finally said goodnight to my demented mother and father, reassuring them that I’d be all right, leaving them in no doubt that I’d probably have to be fished out of the Lough – a lake near campus – but that they were not to worry.

  Some hours later, my spirits restored by a walk around the said Lough, I was surprised to see my mother drive along. She had come to support me and give me confidence in my hour of need. I berated her for coming and treating me like a little schoolgirl. But stay she did for
a couple of days to pet me and drive me to the Maltings, the former flour mill and malting buildings which had been converted for use by the university into exam and lecture halls. She left me there in the mornings on time for my exams. In the evenings she picked me up, cooked me dinner, gave me fortifying Guinness and talked me up to a position of power.

  It was during one of the nights my mother was with us that Johnny D – a love-lorn young man and fellow student from north Cork – staggered up to our front door to pledge his troth. He was not on our lust list but he was a friend and a regular visitor to our house. It was very late and we were all asleep inside. Peace reigned; the house was in darkness. Perhaps the fact that my mother was staying with us on that particular night had something to do with the tender domesticity of our slumber. All was calm until the sounds of soft fumblings right outside Ana’s window woke her.

  Johnny D was in love with each of us. Full of ardour and a determination to gain admittance he wanted to pledge his heart and even his soul to one of us. He’d crept up to the nearest bay window, tripping over the dandelions in his way and had tried to peer in. Fortified with pints, he was ready to make the depth of his feelings known to one of us. It didn’t matter which one. Ana heard him and, petrified, rose and ran across the hall into my bedroom.

  Soon we were all awake, rising like ghosts in the semi-darkness. We huddled together in a bedroom, our voluminous nightdresses reminiscent of the Brontë sisters themselves, our fear keeping us mute. Unaware who the knocker was at this point, we had no idea what to do.

  We looked to my petite mother for guidance and she was more than equal to the challenge. Straightening up, all five feet of her, she cast any hint of timidity aside and with no one to protect her she marched towards the offending disturbance outside the bedroom window and pulled back the curtain.

  Poor Johnny D didn’t stand a chance. He staggered back when my mother was revealed to him. ‘Go away,’ she warned him, ‘or I’ll call the guards.’

  We girls drew breath in unison, impressed yet fearful. We peered out through the glass and saw the shadowy figure outside backing away sheepishly, an air of confusion about him. He seemed to be wondering if he’d called to the wrong house or if he might be suffering from some queer hallucinogenic vision. We saw him trip over the roots of the monkey-puzzle near our gate. It was then we recognised him as none other than our friend Johnny D.

  Full of renewed confidence, the next day I waved my mother off. In the end, I was glad she had come to my rescue. She’d injected new energy and hope into my flagging spirit. Later, when we girls passed Johnny D on the street we waved happily to him. He waved back cautiously, looking confused as he passed. We never mentioned his late night call. We had other fish to fry, now that our final academic year was nearly over.

  With adulthood beckoning me on in earnest, I began to think about joining the work force. To that end, I’d have to find a teaching job I realised, and so I braced myself and set out to face the great wide world.

  The Great Wide World

  38

  My First Interview

  Some weeks ago I came across a few dog-eared pages on Blue Basildon Bond paper covered in my own youthful writing. It was an account I had written of my first adult job interview a long time ago in Kilkenny. I read it and the memory of when my younger self had applied for different teaching jobs slowly returned.

  Reading this material was like meeting a separate version of me, a person who was familiar but completely forgotten. I read with wonder to know what I had been like at twenty-one. The writing was crystal clear and spikey. The first two pages were written in ink with a fountain pen and after running dry I continued in Biro for the last two. My punctuation is all there, with a liberal sprinkling of exclamation and question marks.

  I described how I left home that morning at 9.30 a.m., my mother standing at the door to wave me off. I was thumbing to town because our car was out of action. Dressed in my mother’s suit, I walked behind Sean Harty’s cows until they turned off into a field. I continued straight on along the road, my canvas bag bulging with a balled up mack and a scarf in case it rained, a pair of high-heeled sandals for the interview and a jumper to change into afterwards.

  From Dungarvan I took the bus. CIÉ Express: two pounds. No return fare for students. When we pulled into Plunkett Station in Kilkenny, I got off the bus and with all my hurrying bumped into a little girl. ‘Mind the lady,’ her mother said. Me, I have written with a question mark, a lady?

  Yes, I remember that incident now and how grown-up I felt in the beige-belted suit. How I smiled to myself because I felt sophisticated, like my mother, or like an adult in a film. I also remember how I slid on a slab of stone on my way out of the station and how the jolt of it almost caused me to lose my balance. The near-fall made me nervous and caused a lump to form in my throat as I walked towards my interview.

  I reached the county hall without any more complications and I made my way up to the ninth floor. I write that the elevator’s upward surge didn’t help to calm me down. Sitting on her own at the end of the corridor was another Powlett-Jones, I wrote. This was the character in a television series, which was about a shell-shocked young man’s first teaching job after serving in the trenches during the First World War.

  I joined this other candidate, who was also all decked out for the interview. I describe how she wore flesh-coloured tights, whereas my legs were bare. I was in a quandary as to whether I should go away and change into the pair of tights which were in my bag. No, I reasoned. Be yourself.

  That decision may make or break me, I wrote. The intensity and seriousness of my youth rings like a bell with me today and I can only smile.

  I sat and listened to the clock tick away and also furtively studied the girl beside me. She had a neat little black bag. This one has it all going for her, I wrote. And I recall the sensation of looking down at myself in desperation. On top of everything my skirt was buttoned up the front, which meant that when I crossed my legs my knees could be seen. I knew that whatever else happened I had to keep them covered in the interview.

  Then I wrote that a fellow I knew from my Irish lectures in college, Tadhg, came out from his interview and the girl in the tights went in. He had had a haircut since I last saw him and minus his wiry, shoulder-length hair he looked smarter and cleaner than usual. This is going to be tougher than I thought.

  I crossed my knees and pulled the slit closed. ‘How many are in there?’ I asked him.

  ‘Three,’ he responded.

  Tadhg stayed chatting for a few minutes. He seemed relaxed after the interview and in no hurry to go. In due course the girl came out. She and Tadhg wished me luck as they backed away. I imagined they both looked pale. It was near dinner time. Hungry, I supposed. I wonder where Tadhg is now and if he is still teaching. Is he bald? He had very bright eyes and he was from Kerry.

  Before I had time to gather myself again, one of the three interviewers came out and asked me my name. He went in again. Then he came back to the door and called me in.

  Inside, the three interviewers sat in front of me at a table. I sat down opposite them, delighted because the table hid my knees and my old sandals, which I hadn’t changed. So I relaxed and smiled across the table at them. I was ready. One fellow had a bushy beard, I noticed.

  After half an hour they thanked me and I thanked them. I wasn’t sure whether I had been dismissed or not so I said slán and with my documents in hand I made for the door.

  That’s all I wrote all those years ago.

  The memories of those years are slipping back into my conscious memory now. I had forgotten how my mother always got up when I was leaving for interviews to get my breakfast, iron my blouse and wave me off. Our neighbour Sean Harty died some years ago and his cows no longer pass our house on their way up the hill to be milked. We miss the sound of their hooves on the cement shoulder and Sean’s hup-hup as he followed them up the road. We miss the splashing of their runny brown dung as it plopped onto the
stones and the shuffling of their bodies as they swayed and pushed against each other going up the road. The milking parlour is gone and there are new houses on the hill where we used to hear them bellowing during the night.

  I don’t know why I wrote an account of that morning. It was years before I had anything published. But finding it more than twenty years later has given me pause to remember that fresh green morning and I’m really glad I put that handwritten account in an old shoe box at the back of a wardrobe, where it remained, waiting for me to find it again many years later.

  39

  The Boys of 2F

  I was short-listed for that job in Kilkenny in the early 1980s but before I knew it, I was offered a permanent job in the vocational school of Tipperary town, a role I accepted. It was my first teaching job, so I was very excited and eager to start.

  From the beginning they could see I hadn’t a clue. And I could see that those boys in 2F would try me sorely. They were a mix of farm and town boys. Some of them came on the bus each morning and some were often late, wandering in as if they were still only waking up. A handful of them were bright-eyed and thin. I remember them pouring into my classroom, whooping and hollering, hurling bags across the desks to a chorus of ‘Well, Miss’ and ‘How are ye, Miss’. They were a ramshackle bunch of misfits. They all struggled in school – many of them were hardly able to read – and yet each one was as gifted and as clever as you’d ever want a boy to be. They were the bottom-rung class of second year and were viewed by nearly one and all as near hopeless cases when it came to schoolwork.